A report of the task force on career competencies in oral communication skills for community college students seeking immediate entry into the work force

Abstract

A report of the task force on career competencies in oral communication skills for community college students seeking immediate entry into the work force, Communication Education, 32:2, 207-220,

Communication Across the Curriculum and in the Disciplines: A Call for Scholarly Cross-curricular Advocacy

“…6 Establishment and justification (1983Á1995). Although the first CXC program emerged in the mid-1970s, the first published research within a national communication journal did not appear until a decade later with a pair of highly referenced articles*one in Communication Education (Muchmore & Galvin, 1983) and the other in an edited volume focused on how to help students improve their speaking and listening skills (Roberts, 1983). During this initial era of CXC research, literature illustrated a proactive approach to cross-curricular work with the presentation of detailed program descriptions, meta-analysis of such programs, and specific instructional guides on CXC methods (46.49% of the total database).…”

“…We grouped the data by year of publication, identified critical communication events in CXC inquiry, and then divided the database into three eras marked by those critical events. Specifically, we marked the beginning of the first era (1983) by the emergence of two frequently referenced CXC pieces in Communication Education and mainstream communication outlets (Muchmore & Galvin, 1983;Roberts, 1983). The passage of NCA resolutions at the 1996 conference regarding the role of CXC (Morreale, 1997) marked the change from the first era to the second; key ''state of the initiative'' pieces (Dannels, Jackson, Robertson, Sheckels & Tomlinson, 2001) and the simultaneous call for discipline specificity (Dannels, 2001b) illustrated a shift from the second era to the third.…”

Listening Competency

“…Significantly, most of these efforts have focused on listening skills. In a landmark study of oral communication competencies perceived to be needed by community college graduates entering the workforce (Muchmore & Galvin, 1983), respondents indicated that the listening skills necessary for new workers to become functioning members of work groups included: A federal effort to identify basic skills necessary for high school graduates entering today's workforce identifies speaking and listening skills (as well as thinking, reading, and writing skills) as essential. The Department of Labor panel (of which Wolvin was a member) described listening skills as the ability to receive, attend to, interpret and respond "to verbal messages and other cues such as body language in ways that are appropriate to the purpose; for example, to comprehend, to learn, to critically evaluate, to appreciate, or support the speaker" (Skills and Tusks for Jobs, 1991, p. 2-60).…”

Listening, Communication Abilities, and Success at Work

“…Perhaps because of the amount of time employees spend listening, organizations have become acutely aware of the importance of effective listening (DiSalvo, 1980;Downs & Conrad, 1982;Harris & Thomlin, 1983;Hunt & Cusella, 1983;Muchmore & Galvin, 1983;Rendero, 1980). Wolvin and Coakley (1985, p. 4), point out that managers &dquo;are beginning to realize that ine~cient listening is costly to corporations -costly in wasted money, misused time, deflated morale, reduced productivity, and alienated relationships.&dquo; This recognition by management has led to the development of an assortment of training programs designed to improve workers' listening skills, and not surprisingly, Papa and Glenn (1988) found that employee listening ability and listening training strongly influenced productivity with new technology.…”